Friday, May 29, 2009

Wrocław airport has selected Hochtief construction company as a general contractor for the new airport terminal.

Consortia of Budimex Dromex with Ferrovial Agroman and Mostostal Warszawa with Acciona Infraestructuras were other bidders, but proposed more expensive offers. However, all of them were lower than the budget dedicated for the project that amounted to 430 million zł. Dariusz Kuś, head of Wrocław airport, admitted that all three offers were of equal high quality, so the cheapest one was chosen.

The new terminal will be completed by March 2011 and will cost 296,730,450zł. It will be covered with 73-month developer's warranty. The terminal will feature 40,000 sqm, what will allow Wrocław airport to increase its capacity from 1.2 million to 3.2 million passengers annually. The entire project also includes development of access roads and a parking lot for 1,000 cars. The development should bring about 7,000 of new jobs. After some preparatory work, the actual construction will be launched on the turn of June and July.

Wrocław Airport (Port Lotniczy Wrocław) is a company owned by the city of Wrocław (47.82%), local government of the Lower Silesia region (Urząd Marszałkowski Województwa Dolnośląskiego - 27.16%), and the Polish Airports State Enterprise (25.02%).

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The airport in the Okęcie neighborhood of Warsaw was officialy opened on April 29, 1934 by then president Ignacy Mościcki. After being moved from an airfield on Pole Mokotowskie the new airport comprised a terminal building with a concrete apron for planes, which had been taking-off and landing on a grass runway strip. The tower was guiding planes with a spotlight, like lighthouses do. The terminal building was situated in between two hangars. In 1934, the first year of operation, the airport served 10,750 passengers. Warsaw was connected via air with 6 domestic airports and 17 airports abroad. The furthest destinations included Tel-Aviv and Beirut.

Photo found on Poszukiwanieskarbow.com

The plans of launching trans-atlantic flights were restrained by the outbreak of World War II, during which the airport was destroyed completely. In 1947 the new terminal and ATC tower were completed, along with a concrete apron and a concrete runway. At the end of 1940s Warsaw had air links with Belgrade, Berlin, Bucarest, Brussels, Copenhagen, Prague and Stockholm.

Photo found on Lotnictwo.net.pl

The new international terminal was opened in 1969. Two years later marked the first million of passengers served. The growing passenger traffic in the following yeras caused the airport authorities to move domestic flights and international arrivals into other temporary buildings. The one for international arrivals has served until recently as a terminal "Etiuda" for low-cost carriers. While former domestic terminal is serving now as a terminal for private and corporate jets.

The current Terminal 1 was opened on July 1, 1992. It included a multi-storey parking garage and a web of access roads. A part of the building was dedicated for domestic air traffic. The first arrivals onto the new terminal were flights from Athens, Bangkok and New York.

In 2001 the airport commonly known as Okęcie, for the neighberhood it is located in, was officialy named after Polish composer Frederic Chopin, and 2008 saw opening of the new Terminal 2 building. The latter is a place of an ongoing exhibition on the history of the Warsaw airport. Last year the aiport served a total of 9,436,958 passengers.

Marking 40th anniversary of launching direct Helsinki-New York flights, Finnair has increased its weekly New York schedule by three flights.

In the beginning Finnair was using DC-8 on the New York route and had been flying via Amsterdam or Copenhagen for the first 15 years. First non-stop flight from helsinki to NYC took place in 1984 with a DC-10 plane.

The first Finnair's Airbus A330 flight to New York took place on April 6, 2009. The airline serves three flights a week between Warsaw and Helsinki.

Last week Wizz Air, the Hungarian low-cost Airline owned by American private equity fund, celebrated its fifth anniversary of entering the Polish market. Although it was established in 2003, it started first scheduled flights on May 19, 2004, 19 days after the European Union accepted ten ne members, thus creating a new market of 70 million potential passengers. In Poland Wizz Air has been operating from Katowice, Warsaw, Gdańsk and Poznań, while its other hubs are located in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Ukraine. In June another hub will be launched in Prague.

As reported by the company, during the last five years Wizz Air has served 18 million passengers, including 15 million Polish passengers, to become the biggest LCC in Poland. Just last year in Warsaw Wizz Air served 900 thousand passengers, what amounted for 9.5 percent of all passenger traffic departing from/arriving in Warsaw.

According to the Polish Civil Aviation Office (ULC), last year it has reached 19.2 percent of general airline market share, trailing LOT Polish Airlines and leaving Ryanair behind (details in chart below). In terms of LCC market share in Poland Wizz Air reached 45 percent. For this year the airline forecasts to serve 7.5 million passengers, 27 percent more than in 2008.

Currently the airline operates 23 Airbus A320 planes, but plans to increase its fleet by additional by 59 more planes by 2014. On May 19 the passengers of Wizz Air were greeted upon check-in by a sweet snack and color luggage tags, while Wizz Air's check-in counters were decorated to mark the anniversary.

Monday, May 18, 2009

“Polish Airports” State Enterprise (PPL) has signed a contract with JEMS Architekci, which will design the five-star hotel for the Frederic Chopic International Airport in Warsaw. PPL will invest abou zł.120 million in the development of the new property.

It will be the second hotel facility at the airport beside Courtyard by Marriott. The groundbreaking is planned for the summer of 2010, while the first guest will be able to check in before the Euro 2012 soccer championship in Poland. The construction is valued at zł.90 million and the interior decoration and equipment will take up additional zł.30 million. JEMS Architekci, which will receive zł.6.7 million for their project, was selected from 39 competition participants.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

After years of unsolved tenders and thousands of miles flown on the old and ailing Russian TU-154M that was often breaking down, Polish top politicians will finally switch to modern jets.

Polish government has decided to lease two Embraers 175 from LOT Polish Airlines. They will serve the chancelleries of the president, prime minister and both chambers of parliament. The leasing agreement was signed for four years, according to RMF FM radio. And according to Gazeta Wyborcza daily both planes were made in 2006. LOT was the first airline to introduce Embraers from the E-Jet family into its fleet in 2006. It still uses 6 Embraers 175.http://www.lot.com/Info/EN/aspx/Content__Embraer_175.aspx

Embraer is a medium-range jet plane that usually serves routes up to 3,000 km. It is manufactured in Brazil by Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica. Usually carrying 82 passengers, its interior will be remodeled to cater for VIPs.

Embraers were leased thanks to a special procedure that allows to avoid announcing of unlimited tender. This fact already raised questions among opposition politics, that accuse the government to be under pressure from Embraer lobbyists. However, if it was not for the special ordering procedure, the Polish law makes it unable to announce a tender for the planes sooner than in 2011.

Successive Polish governments have been unsuccessfully buying planes for its top politicians since 1993. The last tender was called off in 2006 after some formal mistakes and accusations that the conditions were fixed so that only one manufacturer could win the tender. At that time it was Embraer.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Despite a visible slowdown in the Polish market of air travel, there was an 7.9-percent increase in Q1 2009 in number of charter flights passengers flying to/from Warsaw, which reached a total of 171,389 passengers. The number of charter flights operations grew by 7.1% and amounted to 1,179.

Currently about 10 percent of all passengers flying through Warsaw use charter flights. The most popular destinations in Q1 2009 were: Egypt, Canary Isles, Morocco and Tunisia.

According to Polish weekly Polityka, due to expected massive net losses estimated for 700 million zł, LOT POlish Airlines are threatened by the Civil Aviation Office (ULC) that Poland's national carrier licence may be taken away or turned into a temporary one.

LOT is reportedly behind with paying airport and fuel fees, hence the threat. ULC, however, informed that the licence withdrawal would be an ultimate step.